2013/06/12 by David Geelan, Geelan, David R
Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Philosophy and History of Science #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1306.2991
openalex publication_date 2013/06/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Recent empirical work in the field of 'weak measurements' has yielded novel ways of more directly accessing and exploring the quantum wavefunction. Measuring either position or momentum for a photon in a 'weak' manner yields a wide range of possible values for the measurement, and can be done in such a way as to only minimally effect the wavefunction rather than to collapse it to a specific precise value. Measuring the other complementary variable (position or momentum) precisely at a later time ('post-selection') and averaging the weak measurements can yield information about the wavefunction that is not directly experimentally obtainable using other methods. This paper discusses two recent papers on weak measurement in the context of the uncertainty principle more broadly, and considers some possibilities for further research.